Back home from travels

Well, it's been over a month since I last blogged - whilst I have done lots of stitching I have been overseas in Madeira and then to  Verona where they were holding the 'Verona Tessile' - a biennial Art exhibition around the old palaces of the City. I posted my piece for Verona a few months back - it was based on the colours of the ripening vine in line with the Exhibition theme - it was a juried exhibition so I was pleased to be accepted and decided to visit as it was somewhere we had always wanted to see.

It is a beautiful old city set in the bends of the Adige river, the centre is almost all pedestrianised so easy to walk around - and there are so many old palaces - never mind the Roman remains and the Arena!

The various textiles exhibitions were held in old palaces, ancient public buildings and old churches. 

They formed a wonderful backdrop for the various different exhibitions on show. 

From Contemporary to tradition and from old silk printed textiles to 3D textiles sculptures.










My piece based on the colours of the red grape as it matures

I particularly like the exhibit of''Take a line.......'

What a way to spend Monday - The Well Cottage Group

Spent most of the day in our local village hall - once a month about eight textile enthusiasts meet up and spend a day doing our own work in company in our small but comfortable village hall. Whilst there are stitchers and quilters in the group there are also dyers and felters- so we make quite an eclectic mix - sound levels rise and fall and it is such  a good atmosphere to work creatively. In the summer we move over the road to Well Cottage (hence the name of the group) and spend the days dyeing with natural materials under the tutelage of Jackie our botanist and natural dye expert.

Used the time today to finish off the backing of my silk Foxglove piece below. It is a whole cloth silk piece, dyed and then machine stitched. Silk is not the easiest fabric to work with but I do enjoy the handle of silk when you are working with it.

Catching up

Well it seems to have been a very busy month with a lot done despite not being at home base for a large part of the time. The piece I showed last post has been selected for the Verona Tessile so is winging its way to Verona- perhaps I will manage a trip out there in late May.

I have been working on a small piece as a fundraiser for the surface design association conference in the states. What they call a spotlight collection to raise funds. My piece was a screen print of a box of shallots developed from a photo image which I discharged on dyed fabric then machine quilted.

Working on a new piece

Been very busy trying to get a piece done to send out to Italy  for an exhibition based on celebration of the vine in Verona.  - hence no time to write on the blog. However, hope to catch up with  recording some of my recent textiles activities soon as I am off up to the Lake District on a creative textile retreat.

The piece is made in differing weights of silk, dyed and overdyed which has then been pieced and quilted - the colours of the silk are intended to represent the ripening of the red grape from the emergence of the first leaves through the maturing on the grape for wine.

Still Dyeing

I needed some more threads for a couples of projects I am working on - so another wet afternoon was the perfect time to do this. I have used a variety of cotton and silk yarns including some silk and yak wool threads from Nepal- sold locally in Oakham which have a marvellous texture. The moss green threads in the centre of the photo are Yal wool and silk.

The large aqua bundle of differing threads took the dye well despite many of the threads having a mixed fire composition.  

I presoak the threads in a dilute soda ash solution ( 25g to 1 litre warm water) for an hour or so then drain off the soda ash before dropping concentrated dye pigments onto the threads. They 'cure' overnight then they are rinsed off until clear of dye.

One of my current pieces of work is this piece an impression of the incoming tide at  dawn over Blakeney Salt Marsh. The base is a loose weave linen which I dyed with procion. I then felted on dyed scrims and organzas to achieve the effect I wanted.  Now is the time for some machine couching and hand stitching - hence the thread dyeing!

Trying out some new colours....

Wet and rainy day - just the time to try out some new colour dye pigments - I recently bought some different acid dyes from Landscape Dyes in colours I have not tried before - usually they are the shade I need to mix with my Procion dyes.  I used  Wattle - a rich gold, Sweet Pea, a warm pink and Kelp - a lovely grey green.   I have quite a bit of rayon silky ribbon tape about 5 mm wide which is super for embellishment and ribbon type embroidery - but procion doesn't work - acid dyes do so I had a short session dying them with the acid dyes in an old crock pot - works really well. I also used up the dye with other fibres, silk and cotton and although the cotton dyes a little lighter these dyes gave clear constant colour.

A little bit of hand stitching

Took some time out to finish a little piece I started  a while back - the design emerged from some old sketches of burst seed pods. Using painted felt for some dimensional texture on a dyed background I then  drew the design together with hand stitching.